AIDS AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

It is a syndrome (also a co llection of symptoms / illnesses) caused by the most advanced stages of HIV -Hum an Immunodeficiency Virus/ infection. Simply put, AIDS is a virus that attacks the immune system; the cells of the imm une system are essentially what your body needs to fight a virus- so when the im mune cells themselves get attacked, you have a problem- the body is left unable to defend itself. AIDS is not a specific illness as such, but a person is said to have developed A IDS when their immune system is so badly damaged by HIV that it can no longer fi ght off a range of defined opportunistic infections. The exact definition of AIDS varies by country (and purpose of definition), but it will generally be diagnosed when a person is HIV-positive AND suffers from at least one of the following conditions: Candidiasis of bronchi, trachea or lungs Candidiasis oesophageal Cervical cancer (invasive) Coccidioidomycosis, disseminated or extrapulmonary Cryptococcosis, extrapulmonary Cryptosporidiosis, chronic intestinal for longer than 1 month Cryptomegalovirus disease (other than liver, spleen or lymph nodes) Encephalopathy (HIV-related) Herpes simplex: chronic ulcer(s) (for more than 1 month); or bronchitis, pne umonitis or oesophagitis Histoplasmosis, disseminated or extrapulmonary Isosporiasis, chronic intestinal (for more than 1 month) Kaposi's sarcoma Lymphoma Burkitt's, immunoblastic or primary brain Mycobacterium avium complex Mycobacterium, other species, disseminated or extrapulmonary Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia Pneumonia (recurrent) Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy Salmonella septicemia (recurrent) Toxoplasmosis of the brain Tuberculosis Wasting syndrome due to HIV

In some countries, an AIDS diagnosis will also be made when an HIV-positive pers on's CD4 count falls below 200 per L of blood (even if they outwardly still seem perfectly healthy and have not yet experienced symptoms of any of the above AIDS -defining illnesses). The exact use of the AIDS definition is further complicated by the fact that som e countries regard AIDS as incurable and an AIDS diagnosis as irreversible, whil st others countries regard AIDS as being cured when a patient is cured of all AI DS-defining illnesses. Because AIDS is a syndrome, there is no test for AIDS. There is only a test for HIV - the virus which can cause AIDS - and the individual illnesses that contrib ute towards the AIDS diagnosis.